Tag: George W. Bush

Western politicians, “experts” and journalists are going to have to reboot their stories over the next few days now that Bashar al-Assad's army has retaken control of eastern Aleppo. We’re going to find out if the 250,000 civilians “trapped” in the city were indeed that numerous. We’re going to...

The “fake news” hysteria has become the cover for the U.S. government and mainstream media to crack down on fact-based journalism that challenges Official Washington’s “Group Thinks.”
A key reason why American foreign debacles have been particularly destructive mostly to the countries attacked but also to the United States is...

The news that President-elect Donald Trump called in disgraced retired Gen. David Petraeus for a job interview as possible Secretary of State tests whether Trump's experience in hosting “The Celebrity Apprentice” honed his skills for spotting an incompetent phony or not.
Does Trump need more data than the continuing bedlam...

President-elect Donald Trump's selection of Kansas Congressman Mike Pompeo, an open aficionado of torture practices used in the “war on terror,” to be CIA director shows that Trump was serious when he said he would support “waterboarding and much worse.”
Earlier, there had been a sliver of hope that that,...

The Trump White House already resembles a far more extreme version of the disastrous Bush administration.
In yet another post-election example of wish fulfillment, there are rumors circulating that president-elect Donald Trump won’t actually stay in office all four years because he won’t want to do the job. After Trump...

Donald Trump wants to deport three million illegal immigrants, and he’s willing to split up families to do it. Expect resistance: street protests, networks of safe houses, American citizens willing to risk prison to hide undocumented workers.
Barack Obama deported two million — more than any other president. Thousands of...

John Bolton, the former ambassador to the United Nations and a contender to be the next secretary of state, argued Thursday that the United States should support a push for regime change in Iran, calling it the “only long-term solution” to threats the country poses in the Middle East.
“The...

On November 9, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu congratulated President-elect Donald Trump through a video message, in which the Israeli leader could barely contain his giddiness at the prospect of a friendlier White House. The ruling Israeli right-wing coalition, which sees Trump as a potential champion of Greater Israel, believes...

As U.S. President Barack Obama arrived in Berlin for a farewell visit on Wednesday, German policymakers were scrambling to develop a road map for dealing with the presidency of his successor, Donald Trump. Last week, in a congratulatory note to the president-elect, German Chancellor Angela Merkel gently conditioned Germany's...

ETHNIC VOTES STOLEN IN CRUCIAL STATES HELP FIX US ELECTION FOR TRUMP, REVEALS GREG PALAST.
Throughout the US election campaign one of The Donald’s main refrains was “this election is rigged.”
Turns out this particular Trump election rallying cry wasn’t a lie... Well, not entirely.
Veteran election investigator Greg Palast has uncovered...

Donald Trump campaigned on protecting Social Security. At the Miami GOP presidential debate in March, he said he would “do everything within my power not to touch Social Security, to leave it the way it is; to make this country rich again.” In August, his campaign told CNNMoney that “We will not...

WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald J. Trump, who campaigned against the corrupt power of special interests, is filling his transition team with some of the very sort of people who he has complained have too much clout in Washington: corporate consultants and lobbyists.
Jeffrey Eisenach, a consultant who has worked for...

The presidency-elect can’t kill the agreement directly – but he could undermine it from within.
America has never known so little about a president-elect. After Trump ran a campaign almost completely void of substance, speculation about his positions regarding key national security issues is doomed to be based on nothing...

With many mainstream Republican defense experts having denounced his candidacy, President-elect Donald Trump is assembling a team of lesser known national security figures to staff his transition team, intelligence and military officials told NBC News.
A number of prominent Republican former security officials have made it clear through words or...

By any number of measures, Washington’s Russia policy has failed. While ostensibly suffering from diplomatic and economic isolation under a U.S.-led international sanctions regime, Moscow has succeeded in challenging a wide range of American interests, most notably in Ukraine, Syria, and cyberspace. Coming up with a new approach on Russia should therefore be a top priority for either President Hillary Clinton or President Donald Trump soon after Jan. 20, 2017.

Are the Wars in the Middle East and North Africa Really About Oil?
The Iraq war was really about oil, according to Alan Greenspan, John McCain, George W. Bush, Sarah Palin, a high-level National Security Council officer and others.
Dick Cheney made Iraqi’s oil fields a national security priority before 9/11.
The...

The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted on Friday in a case involving removal of names from voter registration rolls.
The case was based on a lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio and other entities arguing that Husted was...

Adventures in an American World of Frustration.
Recently, sorting through a pile of old children’s books, I came across a volume, That Makes Me Mad!, which brought back memories. Written by Steve Kroll, a long-dead friend, it focused on the eternally frustrating everyday adventures of Nina, a little girl whose...

Daniel Jones, the man at the center of landmark Senate report, goes public for the first time about the investigation that led to the CIA spying on him.
The man at the center of the US Senate’s landmark investigation of the CIA torture program has gone public for the first...

Hillary Clinton is meeting on Friday with a new national security “working group” that is filled with an elite “who’s who” of the military-industrial complex and the security deep state.
The list of key advisers — which includes the general who executed the troop surge in Iraq and a former...

From Haiti to Syria, the Democratic candidate’s long record suggests she’s looking forward to being a war president on day one.
Whoever is elected on Nov. 8 will be a war president on day one, with the power and autonomy to undertake destabilizing shows of force, drone strikes, special operations...

Sanctions are a critical tool in persuading Russia to change its Ukraine policy. But the West’s overreliance on them risks undercutting their long-term effectiveness.
Sanctions have been a central element of U.S. Russia policy following Moscow’s annexation of Crimea and the beginning of the undeclared war in eastern Ukraine. They...

It is well known what happened afterwards to Tony Blair and George W Bush - but what about the rest of them? Here's how they fit in then - and where they are now.
Sir John Chilcot has now published his long-awaited report into the Iraq War. At the time...

The Chilcot report, the U.K.’s official inquiry into its participation in the Iraq War, has finally been released after seven years of investigation.
Its executive summary certainly makes former Prime Minister Tony Blair, who led the British push for war, look terrible. According to the report, Blair made statements about Iraq’s nonexistent chemical, biological, and...

Hakim was home alone with his two dogs, relaxing one night in March, when his cellphone rang. The man on the other end of the line asked a simple question: “Do you know that we can assassinate you at any time?” In seconds, the line went dead. Harassment is nothing new for Hakim. The 30-year-old has been questioned by national security operatives many times. But none of those experiences was quite like the assassination threat.

One of the most popular apps these days is Snapchat. It allows the sender to set a timer for any photo dispatched via the app, so that a few seconds after the recipient opens the message, the photo is automatically deleted. The evidence of what you did at that...

WASHINGTON — President Obama came into office seven years ago pledging to end the wars of his predecessor, George W. Bush. On May 6, with eight months left before he vacates the White House, Mr. Obama passed a somber, little-noticed milestone: He has now been at war longer than...

There is growing clamour for declassification of the pages along with allegations about attempts by the Saudis to keep their alleged role in the attacks hidden.
Twenty-eight secret pages of a report locked away in a room in the Capitol in Washington lie in the centre of a crisis between...

Despite his rhetoric, and his administration’s perceived shift toward Iran, Obama has not fundamentally changed the US status quo toward Saudi Arabia.
When President Barack Obama arrived in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday for a meeting of Gulf leaders, he was greeted at the airport by the governor of Riyadh, instead...

How the U.S.-Saudi relationship grew cold under Barack Obama's watch.
The initial defining moment of President Barack Obama’s attitude toward Saudi Arabia, for many people, was when he bowed to King Abdullah as he shook his hand at the London G-20 summit meeting in April 2009. The gesture, which the...